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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ISTANBUL 000349
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/13/2013
TAGS: PGOVSOCIKISLTK
SUBJECT: RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN: CLUES FROM ISTANBUL
REF: A. 02 ISTANBUL 449
¶B. 02 ISTANBUL 390
Classified By: Consul General David Arnett for Reasons 1.5 (b) and (d).
¶1. (U) Summary: In assessing the outlook for the new
government to be led by Justice and Development (AK) Party
leader Tayyip Erdogan, we look back at his only major
previous government experience --- as Istanbul Mayor from
1994 to 1998. End Summary.
Refah and Grassroots Politics
-----------------------------
¶2. (U) Erdogan ran for Istanbul Mayor in 1994 with little
prior political experience. However, he had benefited from
his work in the milieu of Islamist leader Erbakan's National
View (Milli Gorus) Movement, Erbakan's Refah Party (RP), and
his own natural political skills and personal charisma. A
graduate of a preacher (Imam-Hatip) high school, Erdogan
worked his way up through the RP system and ran for Istanbul
Mayor from the platform of RP Chairman for Istanbul. At that
time, Refah had pioneered pervasive grassroots political
organization, door-to-door campaigning, charitable donations,
and other techniques now widely emulated by other political
parties in Istanbul. Such tactics proved to be particularly
successful in the populous Istanbul districts of
Gaziosmanpasa, Umraniye, Fatih, and Bagcilar districts ---
poor, migrant neighborhoods that were rapidly expanding as
Turkey underwent massive urbanization. The newcomers came
from the poorest parts of Anatolia in search of jobs and
economic stability. But Istanbul's inability to absorb them
combined with years of chronic high inflation left most
living in dire economic conditions, adding to the swelling
ranks of the urban poor. Mostly conservative and religious,
they were welcomed by similarly conservative local RP
activists, mostly head-scarved women, who provided them with
donations of food and coal, as well as advice on how to find
homes and jobs. Largely on the basis of their support, RP
had made steady in-roads in these and other neighborhoods of
Istanbul since 1984, winning an increasing share of the vote
and minor victories, including the Fatih District Mayorship
in 1989.
A Tight Race, A Narrow Mandate
------------------------------
¶3. (C) The support of the Refah party organization alone,
however, was not enough. Erdogan benefited from the fact
that the Istanbul 1994 election was a tightly contested race
with strong candidates from several of the other parties.
The left and left-center votes were divided between
Democratic Left Party (DSP) candidate Necdet Ozkan (brother
of Husamettin Ozkan, who later became deputy PM under PM
Ecevit) and Socalist Democratic People's Party (SHP)
candidate Zulfu Livaneli. The votes from the center-right
were split between Ilhan Kesici from the Motherland Party
(ANAP) and former Istanbul Mayor Bedrettin Dalan, who
abandoned ANAP and ran on the True Path Party (DYP) ticket.
Dalan told us recently that he had been promised the ANAP
nomination only to have it personally rescinded by ANAP
Chairman Mesut Yilmaz. Dalan says that he then accepted the
DYP nomination with no expectation of victory (Note: DYP is
traditionally very weak in Istanbul. End Note), hoping merely
to split the center-right vote, deny victory to Kesici, and
thereby spite Yilmaz and ANAP. The final results suggest
that he may have succeeded. Erdogan edged out Kesici by a
little more than 40,000 votes with only 25.6 percent to
Kesici's 24.6 percent. Livaneli finished third with 17.4
percent and Dalan "the spoiler" finished with 12.5 percent.
Erdogan the Man
---------------
¶4. (U) Although impossible to quantify, Erdogan's charisma
and political savvy have also been key factors in his success
as a politician (see ref A for more detail). Erdogan has
supporters throughout Istanbul and in all walks of life.
When asked why they like him, the most common response is
that he is someone they can trust. Erdogan was a fresh face,
a talented football player, and came from humble beginnings
-- all political assets in a country that is chronically
disappointed with its politicians, as was the case with
Erdogan's predecessor, Nurettin Sozen. Most Istanbul
residents also respected Erdogan's faith and devotion,
although his Islamist credentials were somewhat alarming and
controversial among the secularist establishment and public
media. This controversy was fueled by pre-election promises
to build a mosque in Taksim square and close the city's
brothels, as well as by Mayor Erdogan's decisions to ban
alcohol in municipal facilities and to close the cafeterias
during Ramadan.
Targeting the Urban Poor
------------------------
¶5. (C) Once in office, however, Erdogan worked quickly to
bolster his public support and reward those who elected him
by devoting his efforts to addressing the needs of the urban
poor. The standard mantra used by Erdogan supporters to
characterize his term is one in which corruption was replaced
by honest administration and city services were actually
delivered. This view enjoys much popular resonance. When
before the election we asked Erdogan supporters why they
backed him, we most often heard the refrain that "he got
things done in Istanbul." Erdogan himself pointed to his
success in such areas as increasing water fee collections
25-fold to 25 million USD, thereby enabling the city to wean
itself from reliance on foreign donors to provide this
essential service. More generally, Erdogan supporters
stressed the city's improving budget picture during his
tenure, in which a 2 billion USD deficit was transformed into
a surplus and civic investments expanded dramatically.
Scrutiny of Istanbul's budget books confirm some but not all
of these points. In contrast to earlier periods, Istanbul
under Erdogan consistently ran a budget surplus. Public
investments were not sacrificed to meet day-to-day
obligations, but were largely realized at the same rate as
the rest of the budget.
¶6. (C) Many of our interlocutors point to the roads, gas,
and water networks built in the poor suburbs, crediting
Erdogan with improving the quality of life for millions of
Istanbul residents. Erdogan gets less praise from middle and
upper-class Istanbul residents, many of whom live in the
richer neighborhoods of Besiktas, Bakirkoy, and Kadikoy,
which continued to experience the chronic urban challenges of
pollution and congestion. Here, too, however, Erdogan is
often credited with completing the first line of Istanbul's
underground metro, cleaning up the Golden Horn, and
constructing an extensive natural gas network. Former Mayor
Dalan claims that Erdogan had no "vision" and failed to
implement any major, new projects, merely executing those
that had been in the pipeline for years. He says that
Erdogan called him to personally apologize for abandoning
Dalan's plan to revamp Taksim Square by rerouting traffic
through underground tunnels. But even Dalan admits that
Erdogan was significantly better than his predecessor Sozen
and concedes that Erdogan "tried." Rusen Cakir, a veteran
journalist with the Vatan daily newspaper and author of a
book on the Refah Party and a biography of Erdogan himself,
told poloff that from the beginning Erdogan saw Istanbul as a
platform for higher political ambitions. As a result,
Erdogan worked hard to cultivate a broad constituency and
develop a reputation as an honest, effective administrator.
Corruption
----------
¶7. (C) If there is agreement that the depiction of Erdogan as
a mayor who got things done has a strong base in reality,
more questions surround the argument that he ran a clean (or
"ak") government. Views differ as to Erdogan's personal
complicity in the various corruption scandals of his
administration, but there are few who would deny that "where
there is smoke, there is fire." And while it is certainly
possible that the prosecution of the cases against Erdogan
may have been politically motivated, the public evidence and
what we have heard from Istanbul contacts in a position to
know point to an extensive pattern of corruption (see refs A
and B for further details). The major scandals involved
corruption in the awarding of public tenders for the city
natural gas distribution system, the underground metro,
cleaning up the Golden Horn, trash collection, municipal
shuttle bus service, and planting trees in public spaces.
Erdogan was also charged with misappropriating funds by
manipulating data on the electronic tickets used for the
city's transportation services and for renting out municipal
advertisement billboards for below-market prices. He has
been acquitted from all but one of these cases, although
there is still a possibility that other cases could still be
opened.
¶8. (C) Former Istanbul CHP Chairman Mehmet Boluk, who was at
least partially responsible for collecting the evidence that
led to these cases, told us that major corruption in Istanbul
began under Dalan, continued under Sozen, but reached new
heights under Erdogan. Rusen Cakir disagrees, arguing that
while corruption took place under Erdogan, it was much more
centralized and controlled (and therefore less in absolute
terms) than under Dalan and Sozen. In any case, the pattern
of corruption has been the same. Mayors have used their
power to award and cancel public tenders to funnel money to
favored companies. These companies, presumably, return the
favor by making payments into personal bank accounts or to
favored charities. Another well-informed observer of Turkish
politics told us that in many cases political parties simply
send their campaign expenses to such companies, which then
pay them and conceal the payments as assorted business
expenses. Rusen Cakir and others have told us that the
proceeds of corruption during Erdogan's administration were
primarily directed to charities and a select group of people,
and not widely disbursed through the city administration.
¶9. (C) How did Erdogan manage to keep his hands clean and
escape responsibility? Boluk, who is also a former
investigative journalist (who also gathered and presented
evidence against Erdogan's CHP predecessor Sozen), believes
that the various cases have been dropped largely as a result
of political pressure from Erdogan and his supporters. Boluk
cited the AKBIL (electronic ticket) case as an example.
After failing to appear for three consecutive court dates,
Erdogan finally came to court with a new legal team that
included two retired judges from the same court. Without
explanation, the prosecutor himself asked that the charges be
dropped. In other cases, unexplained delays in procedural
matters have led to charges being dropped due to a statute of
limitations clause. There are still outstanding charges
related to the IGDAS case, for example, but the prosecutor
has kept the file on his desk for months.
¶10. (C) Among the public, the cases have lacked traction
because of the widely-shared belief, stemming from Erdogan's
1997 conviction for "Islamist sedition", that Turkey's
secular establishment was hounding him and using the legal
system to pursue political ends. In addition, unlike the
"mainstream" politicians who ran Istanbul, Erdogan still
benefits from a perception, almost uniquely applied to
Islamist politicians, that corruptly-attained funds were
plowed back either into city services-- via purchases of
ambulances, garbage trucks, and other amenities for
impoverished districts-- or in party/movement building rather
than venal pocket-lining. (Note: As ref A notes, our
"establishment" contacts confirm that this perception had an
important basis in reality, and that ironically they would
have preferred the older system to being forced to contribute
to causes in which they did not believe. End Note.) AK's
move away from piously Islamic rhetoric to more mainstream
issues, coupled with its recruitment of shady though
presumably more traditional political figures, has made it
harder for Erdogan to maintain this political teflon.
Erdogan's Cronies
-----------------
¶11. (C) Many of the other defendants and people who
presumably profited from these scandals have accompanied
Erdogan and the AK party to Ankara. The president of a think
tank with close links to the Turkish government and state
told us that although other AK parliamentarians and party
people may be fiercely ideological, he believes that this
group is motivated primarily by its loyalty to Erdogan.
Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim, formerly the General
Director of the Istanbul Sea Bus, was removed from office on
corruption charges that took place under Erdogan. Energy
Minister Mehmet Hilmi Guler was an adviser to Erdogan and an
IGDAS (Istanbul Natural Gas Distribution Company) board
member and a defendant in the natural gas corruption case.
Among those who are rumored to be added to a new Erdogan
cabinet next week are Idris Naim Sahin and Akif Gulle, both
of whom worked with Erdogan in Istanbul and were implicated
in various corruption scandals. There are also more than a
dozen other AK parliamentarians that were implicated in the
various Erdogan corruption scandals. Separately, the heads
of several major city-managed firms during Erdogan's tenure
and other Erdogan advisers have since been newly appointed to
lucrative positions as the heads of state-owned companies,
including Turkish Airlines, the State Water Works, Turkish
Petroleum Refineries Corporation, and the General Foundations
Directorate.
Comment
-------
¶12. (C) Was Erdogan a successful mayor? The answer depends
on whom you talk to and what constitutes success in their
minds. One thing is clear, however. Despite his narrow
mandate, the corruption scandals, and unrelenting criticism
regarding his Islamic leanings, Erdogan remained loyal to the
constituency that elected him. He had little time for
grandiose new plans, instead devoting the bulk of his efforts
to providing municipal services to the urban poor. In the
process he may well have enriched a circle of friends and
supporters, thereby laying important groundwork for the
eventual establishment of the AK Party and its success at the
polls in 2002. Among the AK parliamentarians and other
power-brokers that have relocated to Ankara, it is likely
that there is a sizable group that is motivated more by
loyalty to Erdogan (and perhaps by simple greed) than by
ideological considerations. As for Erdogan himself, if his
service as Istanbul Mayor is any guide, his efforts as Prime
Minister will be primarily devoted to solidifying and
expanding AK's voter base. And although that base has
expanded considerably beyond the urban poor of Istanbul, it
still remains largely disenfranchised and conservative.
Satisfying this segment of the Turkish population while
operating under the rigid austerity of Turkey's IMF program
will be among Erdogan's greatest challenges. End Comment.
ARNETT